


Possession With Intent

by TruebornAlpha



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cute, Fluff and Angst, Ghost Scott, Ghosts, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Sciles, Sciles Minibang 2014, Smut, Teen Wolf, Teen Wolf AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:16:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruebornAlpha/pseuds/TruebornAlpha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles was sure his apartment was haunted. His dishes are washed, his laundry is folded, and he swears some sort of supernatural force tries to shoo him off his laptop and make him go to bed at a decent hour. Whoever this poltergeist “Scott” is, he really doesn’t understand the rules about haunting.</p><p>It’s hard making a best friend with some who’s dead, but no one ever said Stiles was a normal boy. Where does Scott go when he disappears and does saving him mean that Stiles will have to say goodbye forever?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possession With Intent

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ghostly Gaming](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941269) by [Cleo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleo/pseuds/Cleo). 



> Written by [Tmautog/Dans](http://nevertrustastilesthing.tumblr.com/) and [Rune](http://runicscribbles.tumblr.com) for the 2014 Sciles Minibang.
> 
> We were incredibly lucky to have TWO amazing artists for this fic! Thank you so much to [Cleo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleo/pseuds/Cleo) and [Sedamagpie](http://sedamagpie.tumblr.com/). You guys are the absolute best, thank you forever!!

  
_Art by[Cleo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleo/pseuds/Cleo)_

It was almost embarrassing, in a way, and shockingly so because Stiles loved the X-files. He breathed intergalactic conflict. He’d give a kidney for the bizarre and out of this world. There was just a very disappointed and unhappy part of him that was forced to believe that most of it happened in a galaxy far, far away (or behind Jupiter; everyone was still baffled at its water content so no one could notice epic space battles probably). He just never expected it to happen to him. No one wanted to admit they were haunted.

The embarrassment was another thing entirely. He wasn’t sure if it’d be bad or worse if things were different, or just - if things weren’t so Scott.

His poltergeist-ghost? Polterghost? It had a name. His poltergeist was the actual worst.

It started with little things, things that Stiles explained away because he was a full time college student with a stressful part-time job and an inability to be as suave as he wanted to be. First it was his keys. He wasn’t a keys-in-bowl-by-the-door guy; Stiles was a keys-thrown-across-the-room-because-ARGH guy. Except his keys kept finding their way back to the wobbly table where he dropped his jacket, and he could never recall having so much free time in the morning now that he didn’t waste any trying to find them. Then it was the milk. Expired milk cartons had a way of ending up in his recycling bin, emptied and washed, and Stiles started to question whether or not he did them in his sleep. Then it was not falling asleep in his own puke, but in the tub, rinsed off and slightly less gross. Then it was the baking soda in his fridge, how his radio always stopped on Taylor Swift songs, and the disappearance of all his sour patch kids.

Stiles started to get antsy about his predicament, but nothing really set him off until he came home to see his Wii playing itself. 

He couldn’t even scream because the law student on his floor was really tall and really large, and Boyd appreciated his quiet. But he pointed a lot and ran away and everything became a little tense for a while.

It was just that, Scott was lonely.

Scott didn’t remember much of his life, or how he got where he was, but he was pretty sure that the things he was told before his current condition didn’t make his predicament seem so boring. He wandered the one-bedroom apartment and the limited length of corridor he had access to before something kept him from going further. It wasn’t a painful thing, just a heavy pressure around his belly that tightened and tightened until he couldn’t. Sometimes he just disappeared. Scott didn’t like thinking about those times. He didn’t want to know where he went, not yet.

It wasn’t bad, exactly. For the most part, the people he shared the apartment with were nice. The first tenant, Kira, was normally too high to notice when he moved things around and he generally kept to himself because intruding on a girl’s privacy just seemed more unfair than it might have been. She was prone to talking to herself when she was high, and was always super sweet. Scott liked to pretend that they were having actual conversations. He played with her guitar when she wasn’t around, and watched cable when she did, and called 911 for her when she OD’d. He was there when her parents came to help move her back home, too. He didn’t like the next guy, Danny, as much. He smelled funny and didn’t feed his lizard, Jackson, as often as he should have. Scott tried to, but whenever he got close, the lizard lost it and tried to run into his cage. Danny wasn’t so bad, but things with the guys he brought home tended to get messy, and while he could take care of himself more often than not, Scott wasn’t above tripping things up when they got too heated.

Stiles was his favorite by far. He was kind of a giant dweeb, but Scott unabashedly liked all the dweeb-y things about him. He was also a terrible human being that Scott thought was hilarious, and Scott might have enjoyed knocking over his caps whenever he wore them backwards.

Bringing in a priest was just rude, though. Also he was pretty sure that Father Dark wasn’t really a priest and that Stiles would regret spending his grocery money on him. He considered hanging back for a few days, maybe letting Stiles feel at ease again, and he’d be more careful about what he did in his… Afterlife. Then Father Dark took out a spaceship, and Scott figured Stiles deserved everything he paid for.

Scott had never been sure how long he’d been trapped in the four walls of the small apartment. It seemed like he’d been there forever, a part of the building from whenever it was first built. There was barely anything before, the smiling face of a woman with dark curls, the feeling of arms wrapped tightly around him and a voice murmuring something soothing even if he didn’t remember the words. He rubbed his hands down his arms, missing the warmth the most. He’d tried to reach out before, but his control was sporadic. It was easier to manipulate things that had never been alive, touching someone was a different story. He’d tried practicing on Danny’s lizard, but Jackson had tried to bite his insubstantial fingers before curling itself into an apoplectic ball.

He’d never really had the urge to smack anyone though, this was new. He stared into the priest’s face, frowning as the man droned on and on. This was just verbatim stuff from the Exorcist, he’d watched that movie once with Kira and it had terrified him but he didn’t feel particularly compelled by “the power of Christ” at the moment. Great, now the guy had switched to Poltergeist. If he started on about “going into the light,” Scott resolved to drop a book on his foot.

None of the others had tried to get him to leave, though to be fair, he wasn’t sure Kira noticed much about the world around her most times. He was just trying to be helpful, there wasn’t cause for all of this. It wasn’t like he was trying to open some kind of portal to Hell and he certainly wasn’t jangling chains or making spooky Ooooooooh noises all night. Helping to keep the place clean and his ‘roommate’ safe was just supposed to be nice. A sort of supernatural apology for being stuck with them and invading their space, even if they never knew. The priest threw a handful of salt in the air and declared the apartment clean and Scott sighed, making a mental note to sweep the floors as soon as the man left.

“That doesn’t work you know.” He muttered, perching himself on the edge of the couch. “I would have gone somewhere else if I knew how.”

“The restless spirit is gone, it shouldn’t trouble you anymore.” Father Dark said grandly, never seeing the faces Scott was making behind him.

“I wasn’t troubling anyone, thank you.”

“Your apartment is free from any satanic taint, rest easy and if you need some holy water to help cleanse the negative energy, it’s $10 a bottle.”

“Satanic? Excuse you!”Scott snorted, flipping the priest the bird and immediately feeling guilty. You should probably not give rude gestures to the clergy, even if they were scam artists.

The priest took his money, shaking Stiles’s overeager hand and swept from the room like he was some kind of spiritual warrior on his victory lap. The ghost rolled his eyes and flopped back on the couch.

“I am sorry I scared you though.” He said, carrying on the conversation like anyone would ever be able to hear him. Sometimes Scott could go days without saying a word and started to feel like maybe he didn’t actually exist, so he did his best to keep up a steady chatter if only to hear his own voice. “I didn’t mean to. I’ll try to be better about it, you won’t even know I’m here. Not that you really knew I was here anyways.”  He peeked dark brown eyes out through the couch pillows to watch Stiles nervously putter around the apartment as if he didn’t trust the ghost was actually gone.

“I like it better when you smile.”

Stiles looked around, wishing he could convince himself that he’d heard something, felt something, something that was more than the plastic bottle of tap water in his hand. He’d kept expecting a crippling call or banshee wailing or - something. 

"Good." He said out loud. It fell flat. 

Stiles grabbed his game controller and flopped on his couch, his expression clouding with uncertainty. His stomach did unhappy flops. When his hand closed over Scott’s, Stiles wasn’t the one who felt it. Scott didn’t pull away.

—

The flops came back the next morning, after he was thirty minutes late for class. He’d lost his keys.

—

The door slammed open with a bang, and Stiles stumbled through, holding a fifty page term paper in one hand and the shredded remains of his dignity (and his shirt) in the other.

"WHOOO!" He yelled, but the house didn’t reply. He threw the document in the air, but a stubborn staple kept it from fluttering around like confetti. It fell to the ground with an underwhelming thump. Stiles only tripped twice on the way to his kitchen. He popped open another beer, spilled half down his chest and spilled himself on the floor, eagle spread and unhappy. 

It had been two weeks now, two weeks of noticing all the little things he’d grown to love. Two weeks of someone not turning the lights off when he fell asleep on his laptop, and freezing his buns off because he forgot to close his bedroom window. Of missing keys and radio static. Of too many Sour Patch Kids - Stiles made himself sick after eating only them for three days.

He made the sign of the cross and wailed. “Shit - shit, are you Catholic?”

The house was silent.

"I guess you were, you kinda - Father and all that. Shit. Is it nice where you are? I didn’t… mean to make you go away. Well, I kinda did, I just. Are you a dude? I… All you wanted was to play games and be awesome, and did I kill you? Dude I didn’t mean to kill you. I’m sorry." Stiles took another swig of his beer. Some of it actually got in his mouth. "I’m so sorry."

Scott watched from the opposite end of the room, surprise written all over his face, but he cracked a smile. It had been more difficult to pull away than he thought it would be, and Stiles had been different. He smiled less. Laughed less. Cursed at incompetent teenagers on the internet less. But maybe he was also less scared, so Scott let him be, and tried not to think about how much more lonely he felt when he shouldn’t have. They weren’t really friends, except… Stiles was sorry.

He took a seat beside Stiles on the floor, and pet his head. It made his hand tingle. Scott thought way too much about the way Stiles could do that. He’d been careful not to brush against his other ‘roommates.’ He watched enough movies to know that could be a bad thing, but Stiles didn’t seem to notice, and he could finally feel again. 

“It’s okay.” He said, and he would be more worried about Stiles getting alcohol poisoning if Stiles could actually get any in his mouth.

—

Stiles woke up with ‘DICK’ written in marker on his forehead, and on the front page of his failed term paper were two words.

"I’m Scott."

There was not enough aspirin in the world.

Stiles’s first instinct was to scream, which turned out to be a shitty instinct when he felt like he was going to puke out his toes. His second instinct was to scramble on all fours to the bathroom and pray for death. Scott only felt a little bad, the boy deserved some pain after drinking so much but that didn’t mean the spirit was going to abandon him. He ran his hand down Stiles’s back as if it made any difference, trying to sooth him in a way he almost remembered.

“You’re kind of an idiot.” He said, voice incredibly fond as Stiles sat back against the bathtub, bangs plastered to his forehead with sweat. “I have no idea who decided you were old enough to live on your own, you seriously have no idea what you’re doing.” He sat on the floor across from the boy, wishing there was more he could do.

“Scott?” Stiles tested out the word, voice quavering more than he would have liked and the ghost grinned, more excited than he should have been to finally hear someone say his name. It felt real for once, almost shocking that someone was talking to him instead of just trying to fill the silence with his own voice. Someone actually knew he existed, it was the first time in…well, ever. “Scott, you here man?”

“I’m always here.” Except when he wasn’t, but he didn’t like to think about what happened then. He looked around for some way to communicate before reaching up and concentrating, knocking the bar of soap off its dish and into the sink. Stiles shrieked, flailing like he could fight off a ghostly attacker as Scott pulled back in surprise. “Shit! I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The boy put a hand on his chest, hard racing so hard he was sure he was going to bruise the inside of his ribs. Okay. Wow, okay. There was some kind of dead spirit thing named Scott and it was real. He forced himself to breathe, fighting the urge to be sick again. “Are you….how did you get here? Who are you? Are you dead? What happened to you?”

Scott shook his head, trying to slow the questions. “You can’t hear me, how am I supposed to answer you?” He muttered, almost laughing at Stiles’s face that looked halfway between hopeful and apprehensive.“If you could, you’d probably pee yourself, dude.” The ghost stood up, carefully pushing the aspirin bottle with his fingertips and nudging it towards the edge of the sink until it toppled over by Stiles’s foot. The boy stared at the bottle like it was going to bite him before carefully reaching out and picking it up.

“You’re trying to take care of me?”

“Sure, now you get it. Now take a few of those and go lie down before you’re sick again.”

Stiles popped a pill, and Scott felt ridiculously proud of himself, but there was no one to see his excited wiggle dance. So he did it twice. He edged closer until their knees bumped, while Stiles’s face contorted with such somber intent he looked mildly constipated. At least he looked slightly less green.

"I’m way to sober for this." Stiles intoned.

"We can agree to disagree, dude." Scott countered easily. "Or I’ll take your silence as you admitting you’re wrong." Stiles was totally wrong.

But Stiles was digging through his aspirin bottle again, only to hold up two pills. “Still with me, Scott?” He asked, and the spirit knew he was normally not so shrill. “Where are you?”

"Right beside you," Scott answered, but after a beat, pushed at the razor by the sink, the one he’d never seen Stiles use. Stiles turned on it with all the focus of a honing missile. 

"I got a thing, dude," Stiles said, jittery and excited and nauseous for a whole new set of reasons. He held up the left pill. "This one means yes and the other one means no. Is that cool? You get English, right? I - are you Scottish?"

Scott burst out laughing, pleased all the way down to his toes, and if he was careful, he was going to make the entire bathroom shake. It took him a beat too long, but he lifted the ‘no’ aspirin, and Stiles squealed. ”You’re not too bad, Stilinski.”

"How long have you been here? No wait, not - shit, are you a demon?"

All the color drained out of Stiles’s face, and Scott briefly considered lifting the wrong pill just to scare him, except that would be really mean and he was pretty sure he wasn’t a demon. Mostly. He still threw his ‘no’ at the boy, just to watch Stiles squirm, and it was totally worth it. “Sorry, sorry! Woah.”

"Wow." Scott agreed, and he couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face. He was talking. He was having an actual conversation, and it really looked like Stiles was smiling right at him.

"This is crazy." 

"Tell me about it, but you get used to talking to yourself," Scott confessed sheepishly. He hoped Stiles didn’t stop.

That was when the brunette got up and saw his face brand for the first time. “You DICK!”

Scott laughed so hard, he forgot to use his aspirins.

Stiles scrubbed at his face with a scowl wondering if having a demonic haunting would be better than a ghost with a sense of humor. At least he hadn’t used permanent marker. He scrubbed his forehead until it was red, the faintest outline of a penis still visible. “Very funny, Casper.”

“It’s your own fault for having that fake ass priest try to chase me out.”Scott said, leaning back against the door as he giggled.

“I guess it’s my own fault for having that guy come and try to get you to leave.” Stiles settled back on the floor and couldn’t keep back his frown. Sure, he’d been convinced his apartment had been haunted but that was different from actually communicating with a real live…er…dead ghost. It wasn’t all in his mind and he didn’t mix up his medication, this was real. It would have been awesome if he wasn’t so terrified. “You’re not still mad at me for that, are you?”

Scott knocked the ‘no’ pill and the boy breathed a sigh of relief so deep that the spirit started laughing again. “Dude, I’m really not all that scary. I wish you could tell, I think I’m pretty normal.” He looked at the dark skin of his arms thoughtfully. It had been so long since he’d been able to see his reflection that he didn’t know what he looked like anymore. He’d been younger before, he remembered that much, but it seemed distant and dreamlike. Everything had been so unchanging for years as far as he could tell. Bare feet and pale, spotless khakis. A red hoodie that disappeared if he took it off and would reappear when he did every time he came back from one of his ‘blackouts.’ There was a time he’d tried nudity, but it made him feel awkward even if no one else could see him and he had no idea where things went when they disappeared.

“Are you…you’re dead, right?”

His hand hovered over the pills, unsure. Maybe? He knocked them both and Stiles frowned in confusion.

“Yes and no? Dude, you can’t be part way dead unless-, you don’t know you’re dead?”

“I don’t know anything about this.” Scott couldn’t put his frustration into words, fighting the urge to just knock the entire bottle over. “It’s just always been this way. Can we go back to asking easy questions?”

“Scott?” There wasn’t an answer and for a moment, Stiles was sure the spirit or whatever it was had vanished but the pills on the floor wobbled slightly and he let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “It’s okay, you don’t have to answer that one if you don’t want to. Are you stuck here?”

Scott hesitated again, then carefully spun for ‘yes.’

It was ridiculous how unhappy a moving pill made him. That should have been a good thing. It meant that he could leave and not be followed around, unlike in like 60% of all haunted house movies. Except most haunted house movies didn’t start off like this, unless Stiles was designated to Youngest Child/Demon Conduit. He scrubbed his forehead, which still felt tingly and raw, and thought about how the marching band in his skull had quieted. For the first time since he moved in, the bathroom felt a little too big.

"That sucks," Stiles said. After a beat he still added, "This is not the part where you tell me to give up my soul change that."

"Oh my God, I don’t know if you’re serious or not." Scott broke out in giggles that hit so hard, his sides twinged. Stiles grinned through all of it, bravely fighting off anxiety as minutes stretched on. Then Scott smacked him with an aspirin, and Stiles squawked. He suspected he’d been doing that a lot lately. 

It felt good to laugh, and if it came with seeing Stiles smile like that, it felt even better. And maybe, just maybe, he could convince himself that Stiles was smiling directly at him, too.

"Shit." All the color drained out of Stiles’s face, and for a second, Scott worried he somehow heard him. "Did you see me wank?!"

Scott roared triumphantly. Then he threw a wad of toilet paper at Stiles’s head. He kind of regretted it afterwards. That was Stiles’s last roll.

  
_Art by[Sedamagpie](http://sedamagpie.tumblr.com/)_

The next few days were an exercise in trial and error. The yes and no method quickly got frustrating. Stiles couldn’t understand ‘Why Taylor Swift?!’ and Scott couldn’t ask why he cared so much.

They tried the writing method, and realized that Scott’s dick drawing had been the product of much concentration and inspiration. Stiles came home with an Etch-a-Sketch that Scott accidentally flung across the room when he rolled a knob too hard. He spent the rest of the day trying to apologize, trailing behind Stiles in a cloud of misery because the other boy had screamed so loud, his upstairs neighbors knocked on their floor.

The answer was kind of ridiculous, but they were kind of ridiculous. Stiles challenged him to a round of Brawl. Then he just never stopped.

"Nononono nononono nonono - no NO!" Stiles howled, as Kirby pushed Toon Link over the edge, and Toon Link just couldn’t make it back. He threw the controller at where Scott should have been, and it went straight through him. Stiles didn’t know, but he still froze. 

Scott didn’t drop his controller. He was busy changing all the user names to STILES SUX, and he only realized that something was off when Stiles stopped moving. Stiles never stopped moving. It was what made him Stiles. He was staring at the screen. Then Scott was staring at the screen.

"Oh."

"Oh!"

<IM SCOTTHI ITS WORKNG STILESSSSSS> typed out, and Scott was sure he was shaking. He couldn’t stop grinning. He could talk to Stiles now. He could really talk to him! Scott jumped to his feet, punching the air and Snoopy-danced around the room, and Stiles started a conga line behind his back without even knowing.

<You still suck> ”You really do.” Scott needed to point out, but when Stiles collapsed on his couch, howling so hard the spirit was sure he would pass out, he took a seat right next to him. Shy and careful at first, he toppled over, draping himself over the brunette, almost like they could be sharing space for real. 

"Yeah, well…" Stiles trailed off, his voice dropping to a murmur. He turned on his side to face the television, but Scott froze. The spirit didn’t know if he could breathe, but he still held it. Stiles was close, so impossibly close, and if Scott inched forward, just a little bit, he would be the only one who knew… Kissing Stiles there made him feel as tingly as anywhere else. They didn’t move for a long time.

This was terrible. It was terrible, wasn’t it? He couldn’t even really touch Stiles and here he was, thinking about what it would be like to actually kiss him. Would his hands be warm or cool, what would it be like to feel his weight pressing him down? The way he kept absent-mindedly put things between his lips that made Scott groan. The ghost kept smacking the pens and straws from his mouth, but there wasn’t anything he could do about the way Stiles would drag his tongue across them or the thoughts of what else that tongue could do. He couldn’t feel this, he was dead. It wasn’t fair! When Scott tucked his body against Stiles, he didn’t even notice and when he tried to hold hands, his fingers would pass right through.

Stiles was finally convinced that the spirit wasn’t demonic or malicious in any way now that they could speak. There was no way Scott could possibly be evil with how much he worried. They left the select screen up on the tv and Stiles kept finding messages throughout the day like <dont drink the milk> and <those pants arent clean> that made him laugh. “You really worry too much.”

“Someone has to, you’d probably drown yourself in the shower if you weren’t careful.” Scott said sarcastically, moving the cursor on the screen. <:P Jerk>.

“You’re worse than my Dad.” Stiles sprawled over the couch, unknowingly kicking a leg through Scott’s stomach as he watched the tv.

<ur sitting on me>

“Good!” He wiggled his butt all over the couch with a laugh trying to squish him into the cushions. A plastic spoon flew off the table and smacked the boy in the face. “Ow! Hahaha, it’s not my fault you’re in the way, dude.”

<u have giant butt>

Stiles howled as the letters on the television rearranged themselves into an emoticon penis. Dick jokes with the dead, Scott couldn’t have been that old then. Now that he wasn’t terrified or half-convinced he was crazy, Scott was some kind of puzzle to figure out and he tried to slowly unravel the truth behind his ghostly roommate. It wasn’t easy, most of his questions went unanswered or with a brief <IDK>. Even that was telling, a ghost who knew how to play X-Box and could use chatspeak meant that he wasn’t from some ye olde days. A quick internet search didn’t turn up anything useful, no one had died in this particular apartment since the building had been constructed and Scott’s memories didn’t offer much to go on.

“Hey Scott, how long do you think you’ve actually been here?” He settled back against the couch, pulling his legs over to make room for the ghost as if he needed the space.

<A long time>

“How old do you think you are?”

<idk cant see>

Stiles sat up with a frown, looking over at where he thought Scott might be sitting. “What do you mean you can’t see?”

<mirrors dont work>

“Do you…hey, what if we could get a mirror to work? They use them in séances and crap, right?” Stiles had gotten hold of an idea and there was no distracting him now. “What if we had a séance or something, we could talk better and maybe I could see you. We just have to get a medium and I don’t know, what do they use for stuff like that?”

<exorcism???>

“Oh. Well just because that didn’t work, it doesn’t mean that this won’t! I’m sure I can find someone who’d be able to do it, we’ll make sure they know what they’re doing and we can find whatever unresolved business you’ve got that’s keeping you here. It’ll be awesome!”

Scott raised one eyebrow incredulously. “Seriously, I don’t know why you think this one is going to work when the last one was such a waste of your money, dude. And…what if I don’t want to go?” The boy looked so hopeful, like he’d found the magical solution to be able to ‘save’ the ghost and Scott didn’t want to disappoint him when Stiles was smiling so brightly.

<ok>

Scott had genuine reason to worry. He didn’t know where he went when he wasn’t at the apartment, and had no reason why anyone would want to go. There was no industrial-strength light bulb at the end of the room, no unicorn pooping out paradise, no pearly gates.

He’d been disappearing less, too. He didn’t exactly notice, but after a week he realized that he could account for almost every day, and more than that, he had a pretty good chance of knowing what day it was. Time had meaning again, even if it was just to count down the hours to when Stiles got home. He should have been embarrassed, but it was the first time he could remember that he cared to look at a clock.

So Scott worried, until he realized that Stiles’s solved things by spending a lot of time on Craigslist and following the worst internet ads. Also ghost sex was really popular? There were things people did with crystal balls that Scott could never erase from his mind, and Stiles was beginning to suspect that prolonged periods of silence meant Scott was laughing at him. He was beginning to get a little desperate. It mattered to Stiles. The more he thought about it, the more messed up it seemed.

Scott couldn’t leave. Christmas was coming up, and he didn’t know what would happen to him if Stiles went home for the holidays, or he kind of did and he didn’t like what he imagined. Scott was dead. And that sometimes crept up on Stiles, in the worst possible ways.

He got a little desperate. Internet searches devolved into asking anyone and their grandmothers if they knew about spirits, and while some of the answers he got were pretty damn wild, none of them fit the way he and Scott did things.

Then there was Erica Reyes. Oh was there ever.

—

It didn’t take long for Scott to realize that Stiles didn’t do visitors often, and a lot of the people he was in contact with were either related to him or the pizza guy. So Scott fell off the couch when the most beautiful woman he’d seen in a long time walked through Stiles’s front door.

He dropped his game controller, and both she and Stiles stared. There were different accusations in those stares.

Erica Reyes was confident, fierce, and unafraid to speak her mind. It also became clear pretty quickly that she was just as awful at Chemistry as Stiles was, and their assignment was going to end in a blood bath. 

There was something about her. He was sure he’d seen her before, somewhere, but that didn’t make any sense. Erica wasn’t the sort of person you could forget, but Kira was the first person he remembered ‘living’ with. 

Scott couldn’t look away. He hovered, maybe literally. It wasn’t like he cared much when his feet didn’t touch the ground.

"Sooo…" Stiles trailed off, after twenty minutes of struggling and failing to balance their reactions. He turned to face Erica, and Erica turned just to make sure he maintained his distance.

"That’s a bad idea," Scott warned halfheartedly, but he was peering between them, face sandwiched between theirs like a bad Archie comic. “Are you actually trying to get homework done?”

"No, I do not know the answer to number 12," Erica offered.

"What do you know about séances?" Stiles bulldozed on, squinting with intent.

Erica’s expression was a thing of beauty. Scott was pretty sure she’d ripped it straight off his face. That was probably just Stiles’s effect on people. The spirit wriggled in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable. It was stupid to care this much. They were doing work, not - not anything weird, and he probably saw someone who looked like Erica on television or something. He could hide in Stiles’s bedroom until they were done; he’d be less of a creeper that way. Scott moved to leave, edging away from them and just brushing against the blonde’s jacket.

And he was gone.

Erica snorted, wrinkling her nose. “Is this the part where you tell me your house is haunted, Batman, because I’ve heard better pick-up, Stiles help!”

Erica fell off the couch. Scott flailed enough for the both of them. “Stiles!” Her mouth was moving, but the Erica he shared class with never moved like that. “What’s going on!?” 

"Scott?!" Stiles gasped. "What did you!?"

“I don’t know!” Erica wailed. “I didn’t mean to? Oh my God I have legs!”

Scott stared at his perfectly manicured nails in shock, feeling everything in a sickening lurch of life. A pulse fluttered rapidly beneath his skin and he could feel his heartbeat settle in his throat. Things were warm and strange and his butt hurt where he landed on the floor, actually hurt. He’d forgotten what pain felt like or maybe he’d never known. Things felt strange and familiar all at once. He carefully touched his face, lingering over a strange curve of his nose and his soft, plush lips. “What’s going on?” The words didn’t sound like himself, a feminine tone but pitched lower than Erica’s normal voice.

He gripped the coffee table, trying to pull himself up on wobbly legs and, oh god, high heels? Balance was hard enough and why was he so short all of a sudden? Stiles hovered anxiously, unsure what was going on and afraid to touch Erica as she cursed in a decidedly un-Erica like streak. “Erica? Scott? What the hell is going on, this isn’t funny.”

“I’m not freaking joking, Stiles!” The world tilted as his ankle turned and Scott flailed way too many limbs as he tried to make it back onto the couch where he hopefully wouldn’t hurt himself. He landed with an oomf, ankle throbbing and drowning in his own cleavage. Scott flushed red, pale skin burning bright as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh god, oh man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I have no idea what happened. I’m a girl….I’m not a girl and I, um…”

“Dude, did you seriously just possess Erica?” Stiles sat down next to the girl, making sure he kept a wary distance in case her head spun around or she started puking pea soup. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I didn’t know I could do that either!” It was Erica’s mouth forming the words, her voice, her hands digging nervously into the couch pillows but there was something about the way she moved that wasn’t like her at all. “It was an accident, I don’t know how it happened and-, you can hear me. You can actually hear me.” Her fingers reached out as if he wanted to touch Stiles, hesitating and pulling back before he got too close.

Stiles made the decision for him, reaching out to poke ‘Erica’ in the arm as if she would suddenly fade away or turn insubstantial. “Is she okay? You didn’t like, kill her or something, right?”

“No! I’m sure she’s okay, I swear I didn’t do anything. Oh god.” Scott buried his face in his hands, blonde curls falling around his shoulders. “Did you read anything online about ghost possessions and maybe a way to stop them? I don’t want to be stuck like this, dude.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Stiles slung an arm around Scott’s back and he froze, shocked silent at the contact. After all the times he’d thought about what it must be like to touch the other boy, he was finally getting his wish but with stolen skin. It was wrong, he was taking advantage of a woman who had no say in the way he leaned into the touch. Erica’s heart shaped mouth twisted into a lopsided grin, disbelieving but so hopeful.

“This is cool. I can actually feel you, I forgot what that was like. You look kind of different with actual eyeballs, Stiles. Maybe you’re just not as ugly from this angle.” Scott teased, smacking the boy’s arm and satisfied by the solid thwack. “It’s good, it’s a whole lot easier than trying to aim spoons at your face and I can tell you that you suck without having to type it all out on a an x-box controller. You do actually suck, by the way.”

"You’re so lucky I don’t hit girls," Stiles grumbled darkly.

"You’re lucky, because they’ll hit you back harder." Scott preened, oblivious to the way Stiles’s eyes lingered over Erica’s hands, over the curve of her mouth, across her brows where her eyes widened as someone else controlled her. They’d been classmates, no more no less, but seeing her like this, seeing how everything suddenly fit so wrong, made him want to find out what Scott really looked like. It wasn’t the first time, it was just - Erica had a really nice smile. Not that it wasn’t nice before! It was super nice, but it was all twisted and dopey now, and Stiles threw a wrench in that train of thought so quickly, he was pretty sure he crashed into a tunnel.

Scott was most likely a dude. He probably looked nothing like Erica!

"Wait!" Stiles snapped, and Scott flailed, smashing his nose into the crook of Stiles’s armpit. "Dude, tell me everything about you that you remember. Come on, I gotta know."

"I - uh." Scott blinked dumbly, momentarily distracted by what it was like to have a nose that worked again. Stiles smelled off, like he rolled in too much Eau de Obnoxious Poop, but his skin… Scott was pretty sure most people didn’t go around smelling other people’s skin. "I’m Scott?"

Stiles made an impatient noise and didn’t let go.

"I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but you’re the third roommate I’ve had."

"Roommate, really?"

Scott ignored him. ”There was Kira and Danny, Kira first then Danny, and none of them really talked to me. I don’t know much. I don’t think I’m old old, like I remember the woods. Are there woods here? And being really cold, and - and someone with brown hair, really nice brown hair. And I.” Scott sighed, frustrated. This was his chance, and as he spoke, it became clear how rare this chance was. ”I think you hate on Taylor way too much?”

Erica’s curls fell into his face, and Scott momentarily freaked. There were too many of them. So maybe he had short hair?

Stiles stopped himself from doing something stupid, like tucking the strands behind not-Erica’s ear. Stiles snapped his fingers. Scott’s hair was still everywhere. “What’s the last song you remember by her?”

Scott squinted at him. ”Really?”

Stiles twitched. This was the best idea they had, and Scott wasn’t entirely disappointed. ”Well the getting back together one was playing a lot? I like the Top 40.” 

"And yet you still haven’t watched Star Wars." Stiles accused, and he’d never seen Erica look sheepish like that. He pulled up a folder on his laptop: The Scott Project and clicked through a chronologically ordered newspaper articles, housing court cases, some creepy Facebook pictures, and a whole lot of weird scary movies. He found the article about Kira Yukimura, a little blurb post in a local paper, and went back to 2012 and asked, "Does the name Alistair Lawson mean anything? No? Melissa McCall?”

“Wait!” Scott dragged his finger across the name on the screen eyes wide. He felt like his stomach had sank all the way down to his toes, a really odd feeling for someone unused to having a stomach at all. He knew this name even if it didn’t come attached with any faces or images. There were feelings though, intense and sad that hit hard and left him reeling. “Melissa McCall. McCall. I don’t…I can’t remember, but I know her? Maybe?” This was so frustrating! He never thought too hard about his past, it was difficult enough to keep himself from fading away some days, but with something keeping him here for longer periods of time, questions were coming back too. He didn’t just exist like this, he must have come from somewhere. Something had happened to him and he couldn’t remember the most important parts of his own story.

“Do you have a picture of her?”

“Uh, hang on a sec.” Stiles bit the tip of his tongue, fingers flying across the keyboard and doing his best not to notice how close Erica leaned to see the screen or the warm press of her chest against his arm. Definitely not noticing that at all.

Google managed to find a picture of the nurse in light blue scrubs as she received some award from the hospital for her outstanding work. She smiled at the camera, hair a barely tamed frazzle of black curls as if she’d just been interrupted in the middle of her shift and Erica looked stricken. His hand hovered over the picture as if he was afraid to touch it, confused and bewilderingly heartbroken.

“Anything?” Stiles asked hopefully and Scott shook his head in a tumble of curls.

“I can’t remember anything else. I just…did something to her. I hurt her, I’m so sorry.”

Scott sounded so lost and Stiles clicked the folder closed with a curse. He was trying to help, he didn’t realize it could actually hurt the ghost. “It’s okay, dude. We’re going to find the answer, just take a breath. Maybe we just pushed too far all at once, we can take it slow if that’s better. We’ll find an answer, I promise we will.” He pulled Erica close and she melted against him, almost greedy for the simplest touch.

“I’m okay, Stiles. I just want answers. Before you came, it was hard to even tell the days apart. I’d disappear or something, I don’t know. Stop existing and then reappear without any clue where I went or what happened to me. I never even thought about it before you. If I was someone, I want to know who and what happened to me. I want to know why I’m here.”  _I want to find a way to stay._

“Whoa, wait a second.” The boy pulled back, wide lips twisted into an unhappy frown. “What do you mean you disappear?”

“I don’t know, can we just focus on this thing? Maybe Melissa McCall knows something about what happened. She’s a nurse, maybe I was in an accident and she helped me? I could have been in a hospital somewhere, that makes sense. A lot of people die in hospitals.” It didn’t really explain why he was stuck here of all places, but it was a better lead then he’d ever had before.

If they found her, she might be able to tell them who he was, and maybe Scott could apologize in person. He wanted to, even if he couldn’t remember who she was. He almost asked Stiles to bring the picture up again, even if it wouldn’t help anything.

"Yeah… Yeah, I can find her. Probably." Everyone had a LinkedIn.

It was still the most disorienting thing to remember that Scott was dead. Stiles pursed his lips, scrunching his face up like that would keep his questions at bay. He needed to know what disappearing meant, and that was kind of terrible when he was supposed to be wanting to make Scott disappear. Scott just beat him to the questions.

"What do you think I did, Stiles?" The spirit asked at length. There was a distinctly unhappy twist in his lips that Stiles had to remind himself belonged to Erica. If they found out, maybe Scott would find a way to figure out how to control all this, how to be alive again. It embarrassed him to think that, and Stiles could see him now. Scott was convinced his intentions were still just as transparent as the rest of him used to be.

"I dunno. Probably got cursed by some mage or ate a weird donkey," Stiles shrugged, and if that just brushed him against Erica’s shoulders, well. "Don’t worry, dude. I’m not gonna let you disappear again. Until - you know…"

Something sharp and bright filled Scott’s chest, and he was certain he was going to fly away because of it. He should tell Stiles. This was his chance. He couldn’t have planned it better if he tried. His hand started shaking, and Scott couldn’t remember ever being this nervous. Sweat prickled across Erica’s brow, and it became harder to concentrate, a little harder to see straight.

Scott blinked, and Erica twisted Stiles’s arm behind his back and slammed him into the table.

Stiles howled, and he barely heard Erica’s demands over his own wailing. “What the Hell did you do to me?!”

"I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!" He babbled, regretting everything as much as he could. Erica did a thing, and the bones in his hand felt like they were going to break, and Stiles squealed like a stuffed pig, sure he was going to piss himself. His mind raced desperately, because this was not the calm conversation he was hoping to have where he picked the blonde’s brain about why she could be possessed and Stiles couldn’t. "I didn’t mean it! There was a - do you know Melissa McCall? Do you know Scott!"

It worked. Stiles didn’t actually think it would work. He gasped his relief as Erica released him, but she’d taken a step back, slowly smoothing down her shirt. A look of genuine terror crossed her features, lightning fast, as she realized her hair was in disarray, and her lipstick was smeared. She wanted to check her jeans - check herself. She still wanted to rip Stiles’s arm off, but she’d recognize that name anywhere. Melissa was one of the reasons she’d found the strength to survive high school. And Scott… ”What the Hell are you playing at Stilinski? You have one minute - or I’ll make sure you can never have children.”

“No, no!! I wasn’t ready yet!” The world twisted and Scott found himself looking up at the ceiling, disoriented. Whatever had thrown him out had left the spirit drained and he reached upwards, hands flickering and fading with the effort. He’d been so close. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved that the universe decided to step in and keep him from making a terrible mistake or if he was devastated that he’d missed his only chance.

“Erica, just hear me out.” Stiles was off the couch and trying to calm the girl down like she was some kind of angry lioness that was planning on eating him. Not a bad analogy, if he did say so himself. “This is going to make me sound like I’m crazy…crazier, but you have to believe me. My apartment’s haunted.” He gestured grandly around the tiny cluttered space and frowned when she didn’t seem suitably impressed or afraid. In fact, she seemed awfully sure she was going to- “Wait wait wait!” The boy squeaked, throwing up his hands in the worst approximation of self defense. “I’m serious, he says his name is Scott and he knows a Melissa McCall. You got all Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost on me, he was talking through you. I swear this is true. C’mon Erica, if I was going to lie, I wouldn’t pick such a terrible one.”

Erica narrowed her eyes at Stiles, hostility radiating from her in waves as she tried to decide if he was making fun of her. There was no way he could have known enough about her family to bring up their own superstitions. Her grandmother had always claimed to be psychic and her mother swore up and down that her childhood imaginary friend had been a real ghost, but Erica had just dismissed them as stories as soon as she was able to swap her light up sneakers for deadlier points. The world had always been hard enough and when she was little, imagining she was special had been just a way to cope with being dealt a bad hand. She abandoned those fairytales when she realized she was going to have to rely on herself and forcibly start over after years of ridicule.

Still, she remembered the McCalls. There hadn’t been enough kindness in her life to forget the few times it was offered.

“I have no idea what kind of sick joke this is, Stilinski, but I’m done. I knew Melissa, but after what happened to her son, you’re shit to tease about it. You’re disgusting, good luck doing the project on your own.” She socked Stiles hard enough across the jaw to send him sprawling and grabbed her bag to stalk from the apartment. That asshole was lucky she didn’t break his face.

“Stiles? Stiles are you okay?” Scott forced himself up off the floor, flickering in and out of reality and drained, but still worried about his friend. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. It was an accident, can’t you hear me anymore? Tell me you’re okay, dude.”

Stiles landed with a thump and couldn’t get back up. His entire face hurt, but there was an odd burst of panic that crept up his gut. 

"That could have gotten better." Stiles decided, but he was smiling when he should have been readying an apology. He pushed himself to his feet, jittery with anticipation. There was a stupid smile on his face that he couldn’t quite shake off, even if he’d have a terrible shiner in a few hours - one he probably deserved. "But dude - you could be Scott McCall!"

He turned to the television screen, quietly chastising himself for expecting Scott to be speak again. They were back to Square 1, and Stiles realized how much it sucked after getting to Square 2. It took him a moment to realize that the answer wasn’t coming. 

"Scott?" Dread replaced excitement pretty damn quickly. Stiles exhaled shakily, looking around the room. He fell into the couch too heavily, face carefully blank. He had to stay calm, no need to freak Scott out if he was just getting a transdimensional sandwich or something.

"Scott?"

Melissa had a son.

Silence stretched on while Stiles quietly fought the urge to panic, forcing himself to wait for a sign. He had no way of knowing that to his right, Scott leaned with his head on his roommate’s shoulders, desperately trying to prove he still existed.

—

His television screen only flickered to life forty-eight hours later, and Stiles jumped to his feet. Of those 48, he’d only spent five asleep. He nearly lunged at the game controller as letters started to flash on screen, catching himself just in time before he realized how stupid that was.

<sorry> spelled out.

Stiles laughed, high and shrill, but he smashed himself into a corner of the couch, patting the space beside him. It was like he could breathe again. Stiles realized he could have spent the last two days trying to convince himself his life was normal, but that felt wrong. He couldn’t forget Scott, not when he was the only friend he had, and maybe if Stiles was honest with himself, he could admit that Scott was the only friend he wanted.

"Get over here, dumbass," Stiles ordered, breathing a shaky sigh of relief. "I know who you are."

Google had told him a lot of things. Google had told him that Scott McCall’s smile was the prettiest thing Stiles had ever seen.

Scott had never used so much energy before, could the dead really be exhausted? It took two days before he’d been able to stabilize his flickering form, blacking out for hours before he found himself back in the apartment. He couldn’t remember anything, just found himself back on the couch like he’d been before and confused why the light slanting through the window seemed suddenly different. Whatever it was he’d done with Erica had taken a lot out of him and he still didn’t feel quite right, rubbing his hands down his arms and trying to get rid of the lingering tingles.

<im here im ok>

“You better be, dude. You kinda freaked me out there a little.” That was an understatement, but Stiles had tried so hard to keep himself from panicking that he didn’t want to show how worried he’d been. Scott was back, everything was okay again. Maybe he didn’t want to admit how relieved he felt either.

<u know about me?>

“Yeah!” He was back in familiar territory, there was nothing Stiles Stilinski liked more than being right. Information was a powerful thing, especially for a kid whose fists couldn’t back up his mouth most of the time. “Look at this, recognize anyone?” Stiles turned the laptop towards the empty space on the couch and brought up a picture of a sweaty, grinning boy dressed in lacrosse gear lifting a trophy up above his head. “Pretty sure this is you!”

Scott stared at the boy, trying to find himself in the bright smile and dark hair plastered down from his helmet. The skin looked the same as his hands and he dragged his fingers next to the screen to compare. “That’s me?” He should have been able to recognize himself, right? He’d always thought that if he found a way to see his reflection, the memories would come flooding back, but it was like looking at a stranger. The boy was younger than he thought and looked so happy surrounded by his teammates and cheering on their win. The only thing he felt was a muddled sadness for something lost that he didn’t even miss.

<ur sure?>

Stiles deflated a little, Scott’s unenthusiastic question bursting his big reveal. “Well, yeah? Scott McCall, you said you recognized that nurse Melissa, right? She had a son named Scott, your name is Scott, I figured…it’s got to be you!”

<i dont know>

“You don’t remember anything about this?”

<no sorry>

Stiles feared that could happen. ‘Scott’ was a pretty common name, no matter how he looked, but a coincidence like that might as well have had flashing neon lights around it. Stiles just couldn’t shake the idea that the boy in the picture was his Scott. He was sure of it even when he couldn’t be. He glanced back at the article, biting the inside of his cheek.

"It was a team effort," Co-captain McCall said. "I couldn’t have done it without any of these guys. Hey we’re having a thing after. You should come too!"

Co-captain Whittemore was not available for comment.

"He smiles like you," Stiles said at length, and scowled because that sounded super lame, even if it was the truth. "I mean, when Erica… You would smile like - and he smiled with his face…"

Scott touched his cheek. He should have been concerned about trying to figure out what Stiles was talking about, but he was stuck on the fact that Stiles noticed. Stiles noticed enough to compare it with some guy in a helmet. Scott tried to smile like him, wondering if he could make his face react that way, with no way to actually check it. 

"Scott?!" Stiles called out abruptly, shaking him from his reverie, and someone was going to have to tell him that he didn’t hide fear as well as he hoped. 

<i dont know how i smile> Scott pointed out, and Stiles’s shoulders slumped. Scott fought back the urge to type something stupid. He lost. <u really like him>

"I thought he was you." Stiles grumbled. "And yeah, he’s hot but? Dude, don’t you want to find out about like… The great beyond." 

"Do you really want me to go?" Scott asked before he could help himself. The spirit knew the answer (or he could make an educated guess), but down that route lay madness. <u think im hoooooot :D> 

"Yeah, you’re a real hoot," Stiles scoffed, and valiantly defended his face against the plastic cutlery that flew at it. He just did a terrible job.

Stiles quieted, so Scott settled back in the couch, letting his feet ghost through Stiles’s, and he imagined how awful it’d be to actually share a couch with Stiles. Really awful. Terribly awful. Stiles had so many limbs and not enough coordination to deal with them when he was alone. Add another person in, and it’d be chaos. Scott wouldn’t even have much of a chance. He wasn’t a hot lacrosse player. He wasn’t alive.

"What if we can’t find a way to send you back, dude?" Stiles asked carefully. He looked at the empty spot on the couch, and it was the first time he’d let himself ask that out loud, but two days with Scott lost in god-knows-where had been bad enough. If Stiles couldn’t figure a way to get him to move on, could he keep the apartment for the rest of his life? Would Scott want him to? What about all the places Scott disappeared to? More and more, the idea of sentencing Scott to an eternity of unrest seemed cruel.

The world wasn’t fair, but Scott had never felt so much like screaming back at it. He’d been fine the way he was. Sure, it was lonely and half the time he thought he must be insane that no one in the world could see him, but he didn’t have hope and it cruel now to show him everything he could never have. Why did he have to have this stupid, gross, amazing boy move into his apartment? Why couldn’t Stiles just leave well enough alone? Why did he have to keep pushing and pushing for an answer and talking to him like he was a real person?

Stiles found someone he thought was Scott and thought he was hot. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to find a reason to keep living when it was already too late?

<i dont know>

He couldn’t stay here forever, it didn’t make any sense. People didn’t live in the apartment for that long, someday Stiles was going to move out and he’d still be stuck. Scott was surprised at how much the thought hurt. There was no guarantee that whoever came next would care enough to find out he was even there and…they wouldn’t be Stiles. He had to stop, he couldn’t keep his friend even if the boy did end up staying. He was dead, being here was wrong. Flickering fingers traced down the edge of Stiles’s face, getting no reaction. “Send me back where, Stiles? I’ve only ever been here. I don’t want to disappear.”

“I still think it’s you, it’s gotta be.” Stiles forged ahead, trying to ignore the silence from the other end of the couch. “See? If we can get ahold of this Melissa, maybe she could tell us what happened. It seems like the right time period even if the article doesn’t mention your completely terrible taste in music.”

<taylor is awesome>

Stiles made a face, pleased that he goaded Scott into replying. “What’s the chance you know a Melissa McCall who had a son named Scott? And Erica knew something about you…before she punched me in the face. She might be able to help us find Melissa or answer some questions about what happened.”

<shell punch u again>

“Maybe. I can be charming if I have to be, ow!” Stiles laughed as a dime wiggled out from between the couch cushions and pelted him in the shoulder. “I can! There’s three pieces of evidence, that’s not a coincidence, it’s a pattern. I am going to figure this out, dude.” He turned the laptop around and grinned. “You’re probably not him anyways, there’s no way you’re this hot.”

<HEY>

Stiles had an expression that Scott liked to call his Google face. He got scarily intense, and his everything scrunched together when he glared at his laptop. It looked like he was forcing out a stubborn poop. Scott settled beside him, edging closer because Stiles would never know that he had, and he rested his head on the other boy’s shoulder as he lost himself in the web. And when it was time to eat, Scott pelted him with hats.

—

For the last two years, Melissa McCall worked in a tiny hospital in a place called Beacon Hills. She had transferred from a successful job as head nurse in the big city. Her online trail was old-people-y bare, even if Stiles managed to find her profile on Match.com. Some creeper named Peter kept leaving messages on her wall.

It was a two hour drive to Beacon Hills. Stiles was scarily determined about going.

<r u sure about this> 

Scott thought he reached the ideal mix of nonchalant and hopeful, the way someone in his position was supposed to feel - probably. There was a sharp twinge of dread that settled in his chest, which was pretty rich because Scott was pretty sure he could reach through it.

"Dude, quit doubting me!" Stiles grinned, nearly bouncing with excitement. This was it! For better or worse, this was it. He’d figure out who Scott was, figure out how to solve things, and once Stiles had gone as far as he possibly could, then maybe he could let himself wonder why he wanted to stay haunted. "My Dad’s over there, too. I’ll be able to pop in, and be back tonight - or tomorrow. Whatever, I’m not leaving until I talk to her."

"Are all of your ideas this bad?" Scott asked, a little helplessly. "You’re going to pester a woman about her dead son. You don’t even know if it’s really - god, Stiles, why are you so fixated on dead guys?" It was the worst. Scott didn’t like Scott McCall, because Stiles actually thought he was hot. Urgh.

"I can totally do this, Scott!" Stiles insisted, when only silence greeted him. "Quit judging me, dude… I promise. I’m not going to mess this up."

Scott sighed, unhappy and unwilling to look too closely at why. Stiles was really invested in this. That was what mattered. <im just a little worried dude>

It wasn’t a lie. Stiles seemed to accept it. “Don’t worry, man. I got this. You just don’t wait up for me.”

He tipped Scott a wink, and Scott drew an emoticon dick. After a beat, he still added. <drive safe>

"You really worry too much," Stiles said, but it had been a long time since that sounded anything but fond. 

Scott watched him go, and sympathized too much with house dogs. He dropped to the couch, briefly considering watching television, even though the idea of running up Stiles’s electricity bill while he wasn’t around didn’t settle well with him. He was debating the merits of turning on Netflix when the front door jingled. Scott snorted, ready to give Stiles a non-verbal lashing about forgetting shit, but Erica Reyes strutted into the apartment like she owned it.

The blonde pocketed what looked like a little wallet, tucking her hair behind her ear, but she wasn’t alone.

Juanita Reyes was nearly a foot shorter than her daughter, but she was still an imposing figure with her pointed gaze and deep-set scowl. It faded the moment she stepped into the room, softening in a way that made Scott feel like he was interrupting something private. Then she chilled him to the bone.

"There he is."

Scott never got the chance to call 911.

—

Stiles was not charming. 

Stiles was really, really not charming. His strategy of ‘hang around Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital’ until Melissa McCall showed up wasn’t working, and the security guards had dropped by to stare at him twice. He was getting twitchy. Eventually he got tired of telling people asking him if needed directions, and he retreated to his father’s house, disheartened and the wrong sort of anxious.

There was a lot hanging on this, and for once, that didn’t just mean his pride. He failed Scott. This was his big chance, and he had nothing to show for it, and things had been getting - complicated with the spirit. Stiles wanted to help him. The idea of Scott spending eternity in a lonely apartment made him want to gag. He just didn’t want to let him go. 

After systematically clearing their kitchen of anything sweet and salty, Stiles threw himself on his couch. The best way to deal with his Dad’s terrible dietary choices was obviously to eat everything. Scott would agree. Scott… Deserved a lot more than what Stiles could give him.

There were lights in the driveway, and Stiles savored the comfort that came with them. There really was no place like home. Then Melissa McCall walked in, and Stiles jaw hit the floor so fast, he was sure he’d cracked it. Sheriff Stilinski followed a step behind and sighed.

"Melissa, this is my son, Stiles. He never calls, and drops by unannounced in the middle of the week. Stiles, meet Melissa."

___

“You can see me?” Scott watched the two women warily, backing away as if they could harm him somehow. It was impossible, no one could see him. He was dead, it’s not like they were…oh crap. What did Erica say about her family?

“Yes, I can see you.” The woman said, gesturing her daughter into the apartment. “You were right, it wasn’t something natural. I’m glad you told me.” Erica nodded and flopped on the couch to examine her nails. She wasn’t even sure she believed all this supernatural spooky stuff, but something had happened the last time she was here and either it was ghost stuff or Stilinski really was going to lose a limb. And probably his gonads too.

“Just as long as he keeps his ghost hands to himself.”

Juanita gave a long suffering sigh at her daughter. Their family had a legacy Erica was in no hurry to embrace. It was a shame, the young didn’t have any appreciation for history. Maybe if she could see their abilities at work and the good they could do, she’d finally want to learn. It would help her the next time a spirit tried to jump into her skin. “You’re not supposed to be here, boy. The dead are supposed to rest, there’s nothing left for you. It’s time you let go.”

“No, just wait a second.” Scott held out his hands, trying to ward her away. “You can’t just barge in here and start talking about going into the light or whatever. I’m not something evil, I’m not going anywhere. There’s too many things left to do, I’m not ready.”

The severe woman smiled, almost sad for him. “It’s okay to be confused, I’m going to help you. It’s time for you to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere, I don’t want to go yet. Stiles? Stiles!”

__

“As lovely as it is to see you completely out of the blue, Stiles, they did invent phones for a reason.” The sheriff said dryly, setting his belt on the table and tossing his keys in a nearby coffee cup. “I might be ancient, but I think I might be able to figure out how to use that long distance talking machine if I got a little more practice with it.”

Stiles barely registered the Stilinski family snark, staring at Melissa with his mouth wide open. “You’re Melissa.”

“I’m Melissa.” She agreed with a smile that seemed almost familiar, bright and just a touch wry as if she was secretly amused by the entire world. It matched the picture of the grinning boy with the lacrosse trophy perfectly.

“You’re Melissa.”

The woman arched one dark eyebrow, smile growing wider. “I thought the next line was ‘I’m Stiles,’ but nope, I’m still Melissa. You okay?”

Stiles nodded dumbly, trying to think of something to say until his father grabbed him around the back of the neck and steered him into the other room with an apologetic smile for the woman. “Son, I love you very much and you know how much I enjoy having you visit, but now isn’t a really good time.”

“You know Melissa McCall, how do you know Melissa McCall?!” Stiles hissed, flailing.

“I met her a while ago, I just…it hasn’t gotten serious enough to tell you about anything yet. And if you stay here, it definitely won’t.” The sheriff said with annoyance.

“Oh my god, Dad!”

"You weren’t arrested were you?" The Sheriff asked, suddenly dead serious, because of the many reasons that would drive his son home, that seemed the most plausible. Stiles squawked, and his Dad was confident that was the genuinely insulted one. Stiles’s exaggeratedly insulted one was a lot less high-pitched.

"I need to talk to her, Dad. I need to ask her things." Stiles insisted, trying to get around him.

"Ahah. Not in this lifetime." 

"It’s really important. It’s about Scott!" Stiles snapped, and something in the Sheriff’s expression stopped him in his tracks.

"How do you know about Scott?" He asked, the accusation already built in. He knew his son well, after all, but what happened to that poor boy was a tragedy, not something the grapevine needed to go back to. 

"What about Scott?" Melissa asked, and Stiles wanted to bury himself in a hole. She was holding an unopened bottle of wine, and her smile hadn’t quite faded, but there was a wariness that seemed so cold.

"He was my friend," Stiles bulldozed on, bravely. "We used to write - like pen pals, and he just stopped. I tracked him down, and I found… I found out."

Stiles wondered if he could get an award. He didn’t think anyone in the history of the universe had ever been cockblocked so thoroughly. Then he thought about his Dad having genitals, and nearly fell over.

“Pen pals?” The sheriff didn’t believe him one bit, Stiles lied like he breathed but he wasn’t malicious. Callous, sure. Oblivious, definitely but he wasn’t purposely cruel. “Stiles.” He said the name like a warning, not that it did much. His son pushed passed him, nervously wringing his hands.

“I’m so sorry to ask, what happened to him?”

Melissa’s smile faltered and she carefully set the bottle on the table. His father gave him a glare, but he was so close to answers that he couldn’t stop now. This could be the key to everything and if he was ever going to help Scott, he had to know. He had to do this for Scott.

“He was trying to be a hero, like always.” She said, sitting down at the kitchen table and running her fingers back and forth along the wood grain. The sheriff moved behind her, putting a comforting arm on her shoulder like he could take some of the sorrow that had settled so deeply into her bones. She managed so smile a little, still proud of her foolish, brave son. “Someone broke into our neighbor’s apartment and he tried to stop him. He always put himself in harm’s way trying to help people, he should have known better. He should have been more careful.”

“Stiles, that’s enough.” His father squeezed Melissa’s shoulders before shooing his son out of the kitchen. “I’m not going to have you drag that poor women through this again. It was nice to see you, but you need to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“But, Dad-”

“Goodnight, Stiles.”

The boy found himself out on the front doorstep before he could protest again. At least he had something to tell Scott. A neighbor’s apartment, if he could connect Melissa to the building, maybe he could prove that his Scott was her Scott too!

——

He burst into his apartment, already mid-yell. “-ott! Scott, I think I found out everything. C’mon, dude, this is huge! Scott?”

Stiles was bouncing on too much Mountain Dew and dubious energy drinks, but he’d sped most of the way home and refused to regret anything. He just had to talk to Scott. “Come on, dude! Not again!”

He was teasing mostly, probably, but he still turned the game console on with too much expectation. Stiles was actually hurt when there was no welcome message, but that was fine. That was cool. Ghosts were allowed to (disappear) sleep when they were bored, whatever. 

"Scott?" 

Stiles clung to his jitters, his annoyance, his impatience, because worry was beginning to knock on his skull. Stiles didn’t notice the fine line of black powder at his front door, or how the papers on his table had been straightened. This was already reminding him too much like after Erica left, and he started to pace. His skin felt too tight, and the apartment ridiculously large, but without Scott none of that mattered. He needed to find Scott. He made to grab his laptop, only to find a piece of paper sticking out of it. He recognized the script immediately. Stiles wished he didn’t.

_Im sorry I had to go. I dont have much time. They found a cure I guess Im going back where I belong. Im sorry I wish it wasnt Im gonna miss you Stiles. Your sense of humor is stupid and youre really gross. Youre the best friend Ive ever had. Probably the craziest too. I think I love you. Im sorry if thats creepy. Promise I never watched you do things except that one time. Youre a really great guy and a total dick and you should take better care of yourself_

_Please be happy_

His knees stopped working. Stiles felt like he’d been punched in the gut - punched through it. There was a hole there now, and he didn’t know how to close it. All Scott had asked was that he be happy. Stiles wasn’t sure he knew how to do that.

___

“Sorry.” The word was on his lips before he was awake, slurred and half-mumbled around tubing that forced this throat open. He apologized for things he wasn’t even aware of. Sounds were painful, mechanical beeping that bore through his aching head like a drill. He couldn’t move, his muscles were weak and even the thin blanket seemed like it weighed a thousand pounds. Everything was a haze of distant pain and sluggish thoughts that tried over and over to break through into awareness.

Stiles? I’m sorry. I don’t want to go, please don’t let me go.

Voices kept slipping through the fog and he couldn’t recognize a single one, let alone the words. There was a woman, sad and loving who made him want to smile if he could figure out how. She came most often and Scott found himself looking forward to her visits like she could make everything better. There was a man’s voice too, much less often and less certain than the woman but he sounded worried too. There was a mix of others, ones that read out numbers and spoke in brisk, authoritative tones that felt more like they were talking about him than to him.

_I don’t know where I am. Can I go home now?_

Time didn’t have meaning, minutes or days or years were the same thing. There was nothing he could hold onto that gave him any sense of events. It was like holding onto smoke, consciousness slipping through his fingers like smoke. Every time he came close to finding some kind of answer, he’d be pulled back under and buried in the darkness that refused to let go.

_Someone needs to take care him, who else is going to look after him? I can’t leave him alone, he needs someone. He needs me._

Colors and streaks of movement coalesced into shapes that didn’t make sense and he groaned, trying to shut it all out again.

“Someone call Melissa, he’s awake!”

Stiles took the note with him everywhere. He read and reread it, and it didn’t take long for him to memorize it, but he could probably recite it in his sleep now. Maybe if he held on to it long enough, he’d find proof that it wasn’t real, that all of it wasn’t real. If he did, then he might not feel so bad about wishing Scott would come back.

They’d gotten everything they were supposed to want. But Scott loved him. Stiles wanted that, too.

It took him less than a week to go home, without a phone call once again. His Dad caught him just as he was about to head off to work, snide remark already in the making, but Stiles barreled into his arms and never looked back. The Sheriff just sighed. Whatever his reasons, it wasn’t so bad to have Stiles back.

"I could have been on a date again," he pointed out.

"Really, after the last one? Ow!"

Stiles went straight for the hot pockets. That should have been the Sheriff’s first clue that something was off, but it became pretty clear what had happened. He let Stiles camp out on his couch, watch trashy reality television, eat processed everything, and avoid his homework for the weekend. It was Lydia Martin Syndrome all over again, and the Sheriff could give him space, until Stiles started to smell.

"You can’t keep doing this, son," he said, turning off the television. Stiles let out a defeated whine, pulling his covers up to his nose. The Sheriff would have gone straight for a bucket of soapy water, if they still had their leather couch. There was a graveyard of hot pocket wrappers around his couch, and he knocked them over to get to Stiles. "This doesn’t solve anything."

Stiles barely reacted, pressing his face into the chair arm, like he could pretend his father wasn’t there. The Sheriff was familiar with the tactic. That was okay. Maybe he could find that episode of ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ again.

"I really messed up this time."

The Sheriff leaned back, forcing Stiles to sit up to avoid getting squished, but he draped a comforting shoulder across his kid’s shoulders. He had his own place and was working his way through a degree, but in so many ways, he was still a kid. “It happens, Stiles… Doing this doesn’t solve anything.”

"He’s gone, Dad." Stiles whispered, and he just sounded so sad that the Sheriff decided to postpone his surprise. "I can’t - he’s really gone this time."

"Then maybe it’s time for you to move on?"

Stiles’s expression clouded, and he squirmed unhappily, but he didn’t protest. The Sheriff counted that as a win. “Come on, kid. Shower, get dressed. I’m dropping something off at Melissa’s. You can act human for a night.”

___

Scott had never seen so much crying in his entire life. His mother refused to let her go and it took hours before she stopped squeezing his hand. He was glad for it, she was solid and warm and always knew exactly how to fix things. She’d always been his hero, she’d never given up him and had finally brought him home. When she smiled at him, Scott believed that everything was going to be okay.

He was frail after so long, thin with wasted muscle and bones pressing up against dark skin gone pale from so much time away from the sun. It was difficult to speak, his mouth didn’t want to form words anymore though the doctors said with practice it would all come back. The doctors said that there didn’t appear to be any permanent damage, but there would be a long and difficult road with physical therapy to help him get strong again. Scott worked hard, learning how to put his words back in order but his strength was slower to return. By the time the hospital let him go home again, he still couldn’t walk but all his limbs responded and he was able to stay up the whole day without falling asleep. It was just going to be a matter of time before he was back to normal, his mom was already talking about lacrosse practice.

No one knew anything about Stiles. His mom would give him a funny look and say something about pen pals that he didn’t understand, but shush him and try to feed him soup. Scott was getting awfully tired of soup. Home was a strange mix of the familiar, maybe he was the one out of place now. These weren’t the walls he knew, the house was different even if everything inside of them was the same. After living…existing so long in that one apartment, everything else didn’t fit. No one wanted to take him back, no matter how much he protested. They kept telling him to rest, that there was plenty of time to talk to his friends once he was strong enough until Scott rubbed his buzzcut in frustration. They didn’t understand. He needed to know if it was real or some elaborate two year long dream his brain had pieced together to keep him sane while he healed.

“You comfortable, sweetheart?” His mom checked in on his nest they’d set up on the couch. “You need to go back to bed?”

“No, I’m okay. Thanks, mom. I want to stay up if that’s alright. The doctors said I should try to stay up longer. And everything is kinda sore.”

“Awww, Scott. I know PT is rough, but you’re doing so well. Your physical therapist said you’ll be walking again in no time.”

Scott ducked his head with a smile. Mobility couldn’t come soon enough. He didn’t have a number for Stiles or an email address either. If he had to walk himself back over to the apartment, he’d drag himself every step of the way.

A knock on the front door caught Melissa’s attention. She ran an indulgent hand through her son’s hair, still a little reluctant to leave him to himself. She hadn’t realized how badly she’d missed his voice until they had to hire him a vocal coach. She’d missed him even more. ”Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.”

"I kinda can’t?" 

Standing behind Door Number 1 was a dashing police officer with two extra-large milkshakes. If he kept this up, Scott was going to be all over him, too. 

"Hi, no solids yet, right?" The Sheriff asked, holding up a bag that Stiles had honestly thought they’d be sharing, but he tuned out the grown-up talk in favor of smiling and nodding. Melissa kept shooting him glances, but that might have been because he used half a bottle of Axe to make up for spending a week on his Dad’s couch. Stiles also used soap at one point (but only once).

"Come on in. I’ll just put these in the fridge. He’s still resting-“ Melissa invited, guiding them into her home. Stiles was glad for his Dad. He was really into her. He probably wouldn’t have noticed if Stiles nicked his wallet. But then, Stiles stepped into her foyer, and was stunned so hard, he wouldn’t have noticed if the ceiling fell on him.

There were very few things Stiles could do to worsen Melissa’s already curious impression of him. Launching himself at her recovering son set up a few dozen red flags. Stiles didn’t care.

"Scott!"

Scott barely had a chance to look up before he was tackled by a billion limbs. He laughed himself breathless as Stiles bundled him into his arms, nest and all. Stiles! Stiles was here! And hugging him and laughing, and Scott couldn’t stop smiling. It wasn’t a dream. Relief punched him in the gut, but it wasn’t a dream!

Stiles whooped, crawling into his blanket fort, pressing their cheeks together as he held on tight for a bumpy ride that would never not be worth it.

"It’s you!" Stiles sobbed, dragging all of Scott’s frail bones and tired limbs into a hug, because Scott’s smile was even brighter in person. "It’s you!"

“Oh my god!” He looked just like he did the last time Scott had seen him. Stiles’s hair was wild like he’d forgotten how to style it, or maybe he spent too much time styling it to get it to look like he hadn’t done anything to it at all. It was hard to tell sometimes. He had the same dark circles under his eyes, he was probably spending too much time on his computer again and forgetting to sleep. Someone needed to shut his laptop down on him and hustle him off to bed when that happened or Stiles would never go to bed. Scott cupped the boy’s face, running his thumbs along the deep purple beneath his eyes and smiled. It was the same twist of the lips that had hovered over Erica’s plush mouth.

“You’re not taking care of yourself again.” Scott admonished. “I knew I couldn’t leave you alone.”

The boy was so thin Stiles felt like he could crush Scott if he squeezed too hard. It didn’t stop him from latching on and trying to crawl on top of the squirming, laughing, very much alive Scott McCall. “How are you here? You were dead and then you were gone and I thought that…you’re not a zombie, are you? Any craving for brains yet?”

Scott snorted and put his hand over Stiles’s face. “I’m not a zombie and I’m not dead. They said I was in a coma.”

“Coma! Dude you weren’t a ghost?!”

“I don’t know. It all happened though, right? I remember everything.” Scott smiled again and Stiles thought his heart was going to melt. “You look like a wreck.”

“I look like a wreck?!” Stiles was insulted and stuck one long finger in his friend’s face. “Have you seen yourself?”

“Yeah, I just woke up from a coma. What’s your excuse, dude?”

“….okay, you have a point.”

Stiles snapped his fingers. “Wait I got one. The dude I was maybe sorta crushing on disappeared without saying goodbye.”

"Stiles." Scott was alive enough to blush all the way to the tips of his ears, cheeks rosy and smile shy, and Stiles couldn’t believe that he got to see him, to really see him. He couldn’t stop touching Scott, his frail wrists and slender arms, his broad shoulders and sharp cheekbones. Stiles wanted to feed him a pizza. Stiles wanted to feed him twelve pizzas! 

"Was it really just that one time?”

"Dude shut up!"

Behind them, someone cleared their throat and they both jerked, both of them far too used to being caught with their hands in all sorts of cookie jars. Stiles let out a strangled croak, insistently shoving Scott’s face into his neck. He’d claimed him. There was absolutely no way he was giving him up.

"Pen pals?" The Sheriff asked dubiously.

"I’ll give them points for creativity."

Trying to get answers out of either of their children proved useless. They’d turn to each other mid-answer and giggle, and it became uncomfortably apparent all too soon that Stiles had no intention of leaving the McCall’s couch. Scott didn’t seem to mind. Scott encouraged him in all the worst ways. Melissa suspected that the only reason she was able to convince Stiles to leave was because Scott started yawning more often than he could form words. She had to stop Stiles from following her into her son’s bedroom though.

Definitely not pen pals.

"Do you want to explain that honey?" Melissa asked later, watching her son struggle to keep his eyes open, only to give in to another yawn.

"That’s just Stiles, Mom." Scott mumbled, scrubbing his face. "I think he likes me."  _I hope he still does._

"If he doesn’t then he probably needs glasses. So he can see what he’s missing." 

"Moooom!"

But Melissa tucked Scott in, and kissed his brow, relieved by the simple fact that her son still had friends waiting for him. She was less relieved at 7 in the morning, when Stiles knocked on her door, looking like he hadn’t slept a wink to ask if Scott was home.

Melissa fixed him with her best Mom-Stare, clearly annoyed that it was so early, but more forgiving that she would have been in years passed. “I know you’re worried, Stiles, but Scott has physical therapy this afternoon and needs his strength.” He looked so crestfallen that the woman sighed and held the door open a little bit wider. “Just don’t tire him out too much, okay? He’s been through a lot and he still has a long way to go. Up the stairs, first door on the right.”

“I won’t, Mrs. McCall. Thank you, Ms. McCall!” Stiles blurted out in a rush, taking the stairs two at a time and crashing into Scott’s room which woke him up with a shriek of surprise.

Melissa shook her head. Boys. She’d missed the chaos.

“Holy shit, dude!” Scott grabbed the comforter, yanking it up to his neck to shield himself from the human torpedo that barreled into his room, flailed for a moment to get its balance, and then wormed its way on the bed with him with more care than he thought a human being who was 99% elbows could manage. “Seriously, I think I almost died for real there.”

“Don’t joke about stuff like that, Scotty. I don’t have enough money for an actual séance.”

Scott took the other boy’s face in his hands and Stiles froze at the way he smiled. Knobby hands worked their way through his messy brown spikes, smoothing them down with an infinite amount of patience.  “You’re still not sleeping.”

“I slept! For like…an hour. Maybe half an hour. Whatever, I slept.” He huffed, defensive. Sleep was for people who didn’t have a million things to do, like research how his dead best friend could have possibly been not dead. The smile grew wider, the corners of Scott’s eyes crinkling in amusement and Stiles finally grew still.

“You know I can tell when you’re lying, right? And I know what you look like when you haven’t slept enough, which is pretty much all the time, dude. This is why you need someone around to make sure you actually take care of yourself, you do a crappy job on your own.”

Stiles hesitated a beat before he found himself answering with a lopsided grin of his own. “I did use to have this one guy who looked out for me, but he had to leave.”

“Maybe he should start looking out for you again since you clearly need it so much. He might not even mind.”

"Things are kinda different with me’n’him now," Stiles admitted, and somewhere down the line, he’d dragged Scott into his arms. There would be violence if someone tried to get him to let go. "We’re not - I can do things now."

"Yeah like what?" Scott wondered if people were meant to smile so much. His face was beginning to hurt.

"I dunno - noogies, wet willys." Scott shrieked when he was tickled, and Stiles thought that was the Best Thing Ever! If Stiles was braver, he’d have taken his chance. If Stiles was braver, he wouldn’t be doing a tomato impression, and Scott’s smile sharpened like he knew every one of Stiles’s dirty secrets. Oh God, he did. "Kisses."

Scott’s heart was beating too fast. He was pretty sure he was going to be sick, and Stiles pressed even closer. Stiles was so much warmer than he expected, heavier too, and Scott’s breaths came in tired puffs, like he was fighting back an asthma attack. ”Yeah? I hear you think he’s pretty hot, too.” 

“So hot.” Stiles said with such intensity, Scott nearly melted through his sheets.

"He’d really like it if you kissed him," Scott decided. "But not, like too loud, dude, my Mom’s downstairs."

Stiles pecked him on the lips, and they both giggled, barely believing they’d gone that far. Then Scott hooked his hand around Stiles’s nape, dragged him in close, and made him forget his own name. It was soft and sweet, and so careful, with too many bumping noses and Stiles’s huge forehead to deal with, but it was perfect. It was so perfect.

He never thought that this would be real. Maybe he really did die and this was Heaven? All those lonely days when all he wanted was to reach out and touch the back of Stiles’s hand with his finger tips and all those times he brushed his lips over the boy’s cheek. Secret touches that no one noticed and meant nothing and everything all at once. It was an impossible dream to want to knit his fingers with Stiles’s and now he was wrapped up in arms he’d thought about a thousand times and trying to remember the last time he felt so warm.

Scott was out of practice and Stiles never had much practice to begin with, but it was a slow and careful exploration to find out how they could fit together. Scott managed to get the other boy’s lips to part, tongue finding its way between to steal his friend’s breath. An unhurried push, urgency molten beneath the surface and bleeding through the cracks. When they pulled away, gasping for air and trying to relearn how to breathe, it was only far enough for a smile to fit between them.

“Scott?”

“Yeah?” He murmured, heart threatening to climb out of his throat.

Stiles looked at his friend like he was the very first sunrise, thumbs brushing along the edges of his uneven jaw and utterly sincere. “How many times did you actually watch me wank?”

Scott squawked, undignified as he swatted the cackling boy away from him. “Are you freaking serious right now? Oh my god, Stiles! It’s not like I made a habit out of it, but you literally would not stop touching yourself in like, every room of that apartment. I was trapped there, there were only so many places I could go!”

His friend pulled Scott back into his arms, giggling into his neck. “Uh huh. A likely excuse, dude.” And it was the perfect place to hide while he was smooth as a brick road. “So uh - I guess that makes you an expert on my technique?”

Scott’s breath hitched, and Stiles was the first to notice. He pulled back, but not far enough. Stiles could count the individual strands of Scott’s pretty lashes, and he wondered if the room had gotten warmer of that was just Scott. This must have been what it felt like to be punched in the gut and have your heart ripped out, Stiles decided, and he couldn’t stop licking his lips. He could still taste Scott. “I’m kidding.”

He wasn’t. He so wasn’t, and when Scott swallowed, Stiles couldn’t look away when his Adam’s apple bobbed. Scott tried to say something witty and brilliant and totally impressive, he just got - sidetracked, by how Stiles’s hands wouldn’t stop fluttering.

"Just like you were kidding about Star Wars being the best franchise of all time?" Scott rasped, and Stiles pounced, squawking righteous indignation, and Scott had no way of knowing if he kept grinding his hips because he was passionate or really passionate.

"You’re recovering so I can’t push you off the bed, but mark my words McCall I’m gonna…"

Scott’s hand curled around his waist, and Stiles’s everything crashed. He looked up at Stiles through those stupidly long lashes, eyes dark like the night, and Stiles was breathless before Scott kissed him. 

"We don’t have to," Scott whispered, teeth tugging on Stiles’s lip, like the least convenient nervous habit because all he wanted to do was play with Stiles’s mouth now, and probably forever. He blushed everywhere, and being alive was being warm, was threatening to burn. Stiles hand curled around his wrist, and pressed Scott’s palm to the front of his jeans and oh. 

Stiles nudged his legs apart, rolling Scott on his back, and maybe Scott should have been more worried about his bony everything, but the way Stiles couldn’t stop touching him was driving him mad.

His mother was just downstairs and liable to come in and check on them at any moment and he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t. Months of watching and wanting and never being able to touch threatened to boil over. There’d never been a chance he could ever have this, the dead didn’t get to love, at least in any way that could be returned and all of a sudden Scott was faced with every terrible, lonely, desperate daydream coming true.

Well, he was supposed to push himself doing physical therapy today. This counted as exercise in fine motor control, right?

Scott rubbed his hand hesitantly, the rough zipper of Stiles’s jeans scratching against his palm as he felt the other boy hard against the fabric. He’d never…even when he had been dating, it wasn’t like this. Allison had been his first head-over-heels fling that burned bright and fast, but that was years ago and there’d never been anyone else. Watching Danny for all those months had definitely opened his eyes and given Scott a new appreciation for alternative possibilities, but he was almost shy now that he’d been given his chance. Stiles had taught him one thing. When faced with something overwhelming and completely out his depth, lie your butt off.

Stiles watched with eyes blown dark as Scott licked his lips, too-thin fingers popping the button of his jeans and zipping them down. There wasn’t much room between their hips and a slow grind caused the most delicious, breathy moan from Scott. He shouldn’t feel so proud to be able to make his friend sound like that, right?

“I know all your moves, dude.” Scott said, trying to sound smug. “I know exactly how you do it, you didn’t give me much choice in learning it. I might be an expert in Stiles wankology which is a real thing, by the way.” He slipped his hand down the front of Stiles’s jeans, stroking his cock through the damp boxers and trying to find a way to wiggle inside. 

Oh that was great, because Stiles couldn’t remember them for the life of him, all three of them. There were warm, strong fingers around his dingdong, and all his bells were ringing. That might actually have been his brain breaking. Stiles wasn’t sure. If it was, Stiles didn’t want it back because what came after was oh.

Scott sounded smug. Scott sounded so smug, and Stiles couldn’t get over how insanely sexy that was. He gurgled something halfway to intelligible, and pinned Scott to the bed, grinding against his palm like his life would end if it didn’t, and Scott realized the best things in the world came after daring Stiles.

The boy draped his arm over Stiles’s shoulders, running his hand down the long line of his spine. His skin ran fever hot, and Scott just wanted to marvel at it for a second. He wanted to savor how it felt to have Stiles all over him, touching him, clumsy and graceless but so eager, everywhere - almost everywhere he could imagine.

"Jesus, Stiles!" Then Stiles’s hand curled around his dick, and it took too much strength to keep his head up. Scott groaned shamelessly, bucking into too sharp hips, and Stiles wouldn’t let up, fucking into his hand with frantic desperation. Scott dragged him into a kiss, laughing into his mouth as they tried to find all the ways they could fit together. They knocked over blankets and pillows, bony elbows and knobby knees flying. Stiles’s fingers nudged against his, and Scott spread his legs until his thighs burned. He didn’t realize Stiles was speaking, not at first, but he felt the flicker of his tongue between his lips. Stiles painted his mouth with Scott’s name again and again and again, until Scott was a shaking, shattered mess.

"Stiles, Stiles, Stiles!" He made a mess all over his pajamas, and Stiles only made it worse. They fell into an uncoordinated heap, and as Scott let everything ooze out of him - there was so much oozing - he couldn’t help but goggle. They hadn’t lasted long at all.

Scott panted like he was never going to catch his breath again, wrung dry and exhausted. It didn’t take much to tax what little strength he had these days, but this had been so worth it. He laughed, happy to be alive and tired and tingling with a warm satisfaction that reached all the way to his toes. He couldn’t even been embarrassed by how quickly he’d spent himself, not when Stiles was grinning down at him and there was so much kissing and please, never stop…

The boy tried to speak, but there weren’t really any words when he was covered in Stiles’s cum and his friend’s body was pressed flush against his softening cock. Oh man, how were they going to hide this from his mom? Stiles needed to grab them a towel from the bathroom to clean up a bit before she came back, but all Scott could do was groan.

Stiles was obscenely pleased with himself, worried for a moment that he’d screwed up and finished too soon, but Scott’s unfocused eyes and lopsided smile told him everything he needed to know. So what if they maybe needed a little more practice to make it perfect, that was pretty damn good and it could only get better from there. “Are you okay?” He asked, feeling more concerned with Scott’s well-being than he’d ever really felt with anyone else. Something about that boy had worked its way under his skin even before he knew what Scott’s smile looked like. Once that was in the picture, he’d been done for.

The dark haired boy nodded, wanting to prove there was nothing wrong. “I’m okay, s’good. Really good.”

“You’re sure? I didn’t hurt you or anything?”

“You didn’t hurt me, I’m not that delicate.” Scott argued, managing to raise one hand with supreme effort and drag his fingers through Stiles’s hair. “I like you, I have for a really long time. Is that okay?”

You said you thought you loved me, Stiles didn’t say, but it was a close thing. It danced on the tip of his tongue, threatening to fall off before Stiles could properly strap on a metaphorical parachute. He wouldn’t stop grinning. He was pretty sure it was broken.

"Dude you just got spunk in my hair," he tried to complain, but he was close enough that Scott’s smile bumped against his. He couldn’t look away, and when Scott giggled, his entire face lit up like he could put the sun to shame. If this was how Stiles was blinded, he’d be totally okay with it.

"Stop smiling at my teeth," Scott huffed, licking his lips self-consciously. He tugged on Stiles’s hair with his clean hand because he was totally not as gross as Stiles. He wanted to push the issue, but at the same time, he never wanted to speak of it again. He’d kind of pulled the rug out from under Stiles on this one, and even if Stiles had done the same, sometimes people thought crushes were kinda creepy even if there was a whole lot of naked going on.

"Hey." Stiles interrupted. "Stop it… I really like you, too.”

Then Stiles kissed him, and Scott stopped everything, except smiling. He didn’t think he could stop smiling now, or for the rest of his life. His heart swelled to twice its size, and he should probably have that checked, but after - after Stiles kissed him silly.

"Just get your gross hand out of my hair."

"Never!"

It took a lot of giggling and someone knocking over a lamp before Melissa knocked on Scott’s door, demanding that they keep it down; it was too early for this.

Stiles showed up at Scott’s PT session that afternoon. Stiles showed up to as many as he could before his Dad asked him if he still went to school.

It was strange having a friend. It was strange being alive, but at least he’d done that part before. The having someone at his side bit was new and Scott was half terrified he’d wake up one morning and find it had all been some kind of undead hallucination and he was back in Stiles’s apartment, invisible and forgotten. Stiles seemed to have a thousand ways of proving him wrong. He’d find himself bumping shoulders and knees with the other boy, always sitting so close it was like they were sharing one spot. He was always laughing, slightly embarrassed by Stiles’s brashness and bad ideas, but oh so willing to throw himself into them. When he faltered, there was someone there to lean on before he even said a word and when Stiles was exhausted, Scott watched over him like he used to before, trying to take care of all the little things like sleep and eating that Stiles always seemed to forget.

And then there was what Stiles did with his mouth. And his hands. And his…his everything. Melissa was sure this was all moving too fast and her little boy didn’t need to be mixed up in anything so “adult,” but there wasn’t any separating the two of them and they both looked too happy to try. She did keep a watergun handy to spray them both if they took it too far in public.

Stiles invited himself into the McCalls life without hesitation, making himself at home and appointing himself lord high protector of everything Scott, much to his friend’s chagrin. He felt a proud sort of smugness as Scott continued to get stronger, his dark skin flush with color again and the wobbly first steps slowly turn into a confident shuffle as he relearned how to use his body. He even volunteered to help ice swollen and sore muscles, though the ice always seemed to ‘slip’ places that left Scott gasping.

It was a completely ordinary day when Scott let the words out, no preamble and nothing to mark the time as special. There wasn’t any fear or hesitation, no real thought behind the declaration except the truth. “I love you.”

Stiles hit him with a pillow and tried to suck his fillings out of his mouth.

Scott couldn’t remember ever smiling so wide.

He was still smiling afterwards, when everything was sticky and gross, and just a little smelly. His cheeks were beginning to ache, along with a dozen places across his body; they were good aches, and Scott never wanted to forget him. Stiles’s arm was plastered across his shoulders and Scott’s face was tucked under his chin, nerves rubbed raw in all the good ways. 

"You know I do too, right?" Stiles whispered, his chest rumbling with the words. He squeezed Scott like he expected him to squeak, protective and possessive in a way that should have made Scott worry, but Stiles had planted a flag on his butt and he didn’t want to shake it off. "You - the thing. Love thing. I love you."

"I know." Scott murmured, pleased as can be.

He was halfway to dreamland, when Stiles squawked in outrage at the Star Wars reference.

"You didn’t!"

Scott planned on keeping him for a long time.

 


End file.
